350 Writers: Ariel Dorfman’s 350 words

Ariel Dorfman has spent his life all over the globe, but always near the center of world literature. In the early 1970s he served as cultural advisor to Chilean president Salvador Allende, until a US-backed coup drove him into exile. You can read about the experience of that dislocation in his classic Heading North, Looking South. He writes poetry, essays, novels; his plays have been widely performed; and here he shows he’s a master of that new genre, the 350-word piece. We’re awfully grateful. For more poems and essays, click here.